Pages

Friday, April 26, 2013

Disclosure Alert: Alpha Protocol: Episode 20: Cougar-Lover Voice

This episode concludes the great train robbery! How exciting!

Anyway, there's not a whole lot to talk about this episode. This was pretty much a straight up combat mission. Aldowyn spent a lot of time doing poorly shooting targets with a pistol/shotgun this episode.

How you deal with the weapons shipment makes for a very interesting choice. Although we couldn't because we pissed him off, if Grigori likes you and you have yet to do this mission, he'll ask you to reroute the weapons to him. Doing so nets you a sum of money worth more than you could sell the weapons for, but causes Mina to like you less (-1 Reputation) and Grigori to like you more (+1 Reputation). This, and the follow up e-mails, are the only way you can get Grigori to "Like" you. In a similar fashion to SIS, Grigori drops out of the narrative past this point and will no longer be relevant to the plot.
Regardless, you still have two other choices. You can destroy the shipment and get Mina to like you, as we did, or you can send the weapons to yourself. Spending yourself the weapons nets you some okay pieces that honestly are inferior to any weapon you're likely to have, but you can easily sell them for some money and Mina's reputation is unchanged. It's overall an insignificant choice, but it serves as another opportunity to flesh out Thorton's character.

I forgot to mention, but that whole scene where we get a copy of the manifest is why we're here. We knew the missiles came from this trainyard, so we came here to get more information, which we did.

I'm going to be honest, there is absolutely zero reason to take part in this fight with SIE. We're doing it mostly because we also have no reason NOT to. You can get her Reputation up easily without this fight, you'd only really fight her if you want her knee pad and e-mail.

Speaking of her e-mail, this is one of my favorite trolls I've ever done. Anaphysik, Irridium, and I were ALL of the same page. The result was... beautiful. Thank you Obsidian, for making a character that has that particular line. I have mixed feelings towards SIE, but since her character trolls Aldowyn, she must be good.

PS: The next episode batch may take some time before it comes out. It's the end of college term, so time is precious and scarce.